This is exactly right, sequestering energy in a highly complex system with millions or billions of feedback loops, produces effects which are difficult to predict and are not intuitive. Increasing energy causes chaotic change. The Thermodynamicist Prigogine spoke of dissipative structures. Adding energy to steady state systems has little effect as the system absorbs the energy up to it's limit, and which point the system becomes perturbed, and goes into chaotic fluctuation (and continues to do so until it arrives at the next steady state.)

Ocean acidification is reflective of a fundamental change in global environment. The "Rise of Slime" [sciencedaily.com] is a powerful indication that the chemistry and biology of our oceans is going through a revolutionary transformation. Even fresh water lakes are showing increasing signs of anaerobic bacterial growth, expanding growth of both cyanobacteria and blue green algae, and acidification.

The accurate term now is climate and ecological change. The wise woods-man knows not to defecate close to where he masticates. It's time the species got that lesson, and stopped using the world we rely on as a toilet. The growing changes indicate wild swings and a system slipping into chaos.

There is no coming ice age. As the arctic warms one can expect the jet stream to become more unstable and with warming there is a lot more moisture in the air. While Scotts are suffering because of their proximity to the North Sea from too much snow, Russians are having a relatively mild time of it. If one looks at the global average, last year was tied for the hottest ever recorded during human history.

I mean the graph has jumped 10 degrees downward 10 times like clockwork every 100000-110000 years or so. Seems logical that it will in fact jump again, doesn't it ? Last time it jumped was about 108000 years ago. So it's pretty much bound to jump again. And I repeat, we do *not* know what causes this, and the temperature drops like a stone (weather apparently goes from normal to ice age conditions, meaning permafrost in the northern sahara, and a *very* white Christmas in southern Mexico, while Florida becomes an ice sheet, just to give an idea how extreme this is, in less than 10 years). That's 10 years, triggered by some unknown event, after which America less inhabitable than Greenland. Even the deserts of the middle east will be cold conditions, and harsh winters, at best.

Of course the error margin on these data are like 500-1000 years, which is a lot of time. But while we don't know why or how, *something* is going to trigger an ice age, pretty soon now. But that's "pretty soon" in "very likely in the next 2000 years"...

"Climate change" is such a clever slogan because climate, almost by definition, is and has always been changing. So far, so good. It should be unsurprising, however, that skepticism is evoked when any idea, especially a scientific theory, is so passionately embraced by political movements spawned to both advance the theory and "solve" the expected ill. Yes, propaganda can be targeted for good or ill intent, but when it becomes so loud, obnoxious, and ubiquitous that it attempts to discourage all legitimate debate, intentions matter little regardless how pure and saintly the proponents. Sorry to say I just come equipped with activist warning lights. When it comes to the depth of our understanding of systems so complex and paradoxically subtle as climate, ham-handed political "solutions" are far more likely to spawn unknown and unintended consequences than mitigation to ascribed risks.

There's a few problems with your statement:1) "Climate change" isn't a slogan, it's the name of the problem. A slogan would be "More cars, less land".

2) While the climate does change naturally, it changes naturally on a much slower time scale than we are currently experiencing. That's why scientists usually talk about Anthropogenic Climate Change.

3) There are political movements spawned to fix many different problems, and all of them provide "solutions" for the expected ills of the problem. It wouldn't be a political movement if it didn't propose solutions to the problem. This is expected.

4) Skepticism is good, and thus many people like to think or pretend that they're skeptics. It's usually pretty easy to spot the people who only claim to be skeptics because they do not critically examine their own evidence only the evidence of others.

5) At some point debate has to end, there is literally no benefit to having to argue every day over whether 2+2=4 and whether gravity will continue working tomorrow.

6) Ham-handed political solutions always spawn unknown and unintended consequences. The benefits of taking action have to weighed against the risks.

Most of the world would rather be talking about the benefits and drawbacks of different solutions to the problems posed by climate change, however, as long as the so-called debate over whether the problem actually exists it's difficult to have a rational discussion about what to do about the problem. Upton Sinclair wrote in one of his books: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!", and the debate over climate change has certainly demonstrated the profoundity of that statement. At some point, the debate has to end, regardless of how many people would rather that it continue until after they have retired and their salaries are no longer dependent on the problem not being addressed. There will always be a question of how much evidence is enough.

That's something you might need to ask yourself. What would actually convince you that climate change represents a danger to the lives of millions, possibly billions of people?

Except the problem was previously called "Global Warming" and when it became clear that maybe that wasn't panning out, "Global Warming" morphed to "Climate Change".

The only reason "global warming" didn't "pan out" is that there are too many idiots around who call BS every time it snows because they can't comprehend that the warming is on average. What "global warming" really means is that you're adding more energy to the system and thereby increasing volatility -- hot places get hotter, cold places get colder, storms get stronger, droughts get drier. It's like how the surface of a glass of water gets less flat when you shake it. But you dumbasses just don't fucking get it, so it got renamed "climate change" to try to help you understand.

1. Regardless of whether you like the term climate change or not, and whether or not your paranoia is justified, climate change is still not a slogan.

2. 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record. I'm not sure how this plays into your claim that temperatures are falling. In fact, as I understand it, the 10 hottest years on record are (in order): 2010*, 1998, 2005, 2009, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2001. That list doesn't look much like "temperatures are falling". In fact, NASA [nasa.gov] is predicting that 2012 will likely displace 2010 as the hottest year on record.

3. Carbon taxes would not allow the skimming of profits to private funds and banking cartels. As a "tax" it would be going to governments. Cap and trade, on the other hand, would most definitely result in profit form private enterprises. In fact, I dare say, the whole idea of cap and trade is based on the idea that is better from private industry to profit than for the government to profit from the production of CO2.

4. We should be skeptical of all claims, not just those of people we disagree with. Many of your views, in particular, seem to be wildly out of sync with reality. A little more healthy skepticism of the people who you agree with might help you back to some views grounded in reality.

5. This is a perfect example of why debate has to eventually end. If you dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as a fraud or con artist then there can only ever be one satisfactory end to a debate. Now imagine there is at least one person who thinks the same way as you on the other side. The debate is now eternal, regardless of the merits of the arguments.

6. You might like to look at some the temperature graphs. The line is still trending upwards. It's true that 1998 and 2005 were the top 2 warmest years on record. However, the average global temperature for 2009 was virtually the same as the temperature of 2005. We expect to see warming and cooling cycles related to El nino and El nina effects. The next year that is likely to experience similar conditions to 1998 is expected to be 2012.

Yes, weather events do kill people every year, however, climate change is making many natural disasters worse and the greatest threats aren't from freak weather conditions but from changes systematic changes in agricultural areas. If once fertile areas are rendered minimally fertile due to repeated flooding, droughts, and pest migrations, it will likely take years (at best) to replace them. War and famine triggered by climate change represent the biggest threats from climate change. It is in our best interest to carefully consider what the consequences of each action is, including the consequences of inaction.

* As 2010 is not yet done, in theory there still remains a chance that it will be the second or third warmest year on record.

Not only that, most people fail to make the connection that the primary sponsors of terrorism are currently Saudi Arabia and Iran (Also notable as the top 2 oil exporters). In particular, there are a few oil billionaires in those countries who are deliberately funding radical Muslim jihadists. A dramatic reduction in oil consumption would likely do more to combat terrorism than sending soldiers to the Middle East.

So to U.S. keeps giving money to the primary sponsors of terrorism so they can fight terrori

What accounts for the new ice-age we are entering, with year-to-year glacial expansion, and London's prospective 3rd white Christmas in a row?

Glacial expansion? I'm very interested in a link about growing glaciers. My impression is that most major glaciers (other than East Antarctica, obviously) are shrinking.

Also, keep in mind that London is not the entire world. Amsterdam is also having its second white Sinterklaas in a row (after decades of not even having any white Christmasses), but that means nothing on a global scale. It's perfectly possible for north-west Europe to become colder while the rest of the world gets warmer. Consider that we're at the same latitude as Moscow and Calgary. It's the warm gulf stream that's keeping us warm. Without it, expect an ice age in Europe, despite warming in the rest of the world.

Uh huh, and I suppose you're a published researcher in a relevant field, and have published rebuttals to all the peer reviewed research that says ocean acidification is a result of increased atmospheric CO2?

You deduced 'always' from my one liner? Any way...No. to answer your question
The point is there is plenty of evidence that it is happening, varying degrees of urgency or lack thereof does not change the overall message and science

It's happening all right, but I still have my doubts if it is happening due to man or if it's part of some unknown cycle of Earth which is too complicated for us to grasp yet.

It's not an unknown cycle of Earth which is too complicated for us to grasp. We HAVE grasped it. It's just that Al Gore and friends and politicians who like to hop on the green bandwagon and people who think being "green" is going to stop global warming refuse to believe it.

Now, that's not to say that being "green" (whatever the fuck that means) is a bad thing. There's plenty of other things that can be stopped by producing less emissions, including lowering the amount of smog in the air and indirectly reducing our dependance on foreign energy sources (because god forbid we drill for oil off OUR coast). Global warming just isn't one of them, and this apocalypse that's going to happen in 10 years if we don't drastically alter our energy habits... simply won't.

It's happening all right, but I still have my doubts if it is happening due to man or if it's part of some unknown cycle of Earth which is too complicated for us to grasp yet.

It is of course always possible that something we don't understand is going on, but the physics of greenhouse gasses seems to be quite well established. There doesn't seem to be a lot of need to look farther, unless you just don't like the unavoidable conclusion.

True, but that doesn't mean that previous scientific conclusions will be completely refuted. Newton's Law of Gravity turned out to be wrong and was replaced, but in practice their predictions are 99% the same. It's only that 1% that required a better theory. The Theory of Evolution has seen a lot of refinements over the past 150 years, but the basics stand. We don't fully understand all the effects and feedback mechanisms behind global warming, but the basic theory that rising CO2 means retaining more heat, is sound.

It's happening all right, but I still have my doubts if it is happening due to man or if it's part of some unknown cycle of Earth which is too complicated for us to grasp yet.

But surely you see that if it is because of what we do, it is actually more encouraging that if not; because if it is something we do, then there is a chance that we can stop doing it, but if it isn't, then we are powerless.

Also, the important thing has always been that it is happening and we have to do something. If we are causing it, then we have more options as to what we do. The big problem we have with the climate deniers is that their only interest is to stop us from doing anything that will hurt thei

Be that as it may, the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen from about about 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution, to about 380 ppm at present. The burden of proof is on those who believe that that's not going to have a noticeable impact to make their case, and if their conclusions are at all in doubt, the path of prudence is to not rock the boat, and do what we can to cut back on CO2 emissions.

I've got a better idea. If an economy of trillions of dollars is threatened by something which has not been proven, then those doing the threatening should bear the burden of proof.

(Or, as a famous environmentalist once said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.")

Absolutely. The safety of burning oil the way we do is predicated on adding huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere will have no detrimental effect on climate.

We've known since Fourier and Arrhenius that on its own increasing CO2 will cause the Earth's surface temperature to increase.

The ball is now in the oil industry's court to prove that there really are feedbacks that will eliminate the negative effects. Unfortunately, the evidence accrues daily that indicates that, if anything, the scientists have been too conservative in their estimations of negative effects.

Did you read the article? It said exactly that increased levels of CO2 will be mitigated by increased growth of green plant life, and that the current models are too aggressive in their estimations of negative effects. And this report was not from the oil industry, but from NASA and NOAA, both of whom have been vocal supporters of existing global warming models. Why did you immediately dismiss this new report in favor of scientists who lived one hundred years ago?

Why is it that when someone questions evidence of human caused global warming, he's labeled a "denier" (a term which was intentionally chosen to evoke images of Holocost Denial, by the way) but when someone questions evidence that it's not as bad as previously though, he's not just doing the right thing?

The bottom line is that we don't really know what's going on. Ignoring evidence that doesn't support your claims is just bad science.

I've got a better idea. If an economy of trillions of dollars is threatened by something which has not been proven, then those doing the threatening should bear the burden of proof.

(Or, as a famous environmentalist once said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.")

By the same token, it's not proven that an economy of trillions is threatened by reducing CO2 emissions. The notion that the economy is "threatened" by climate change or by attempting to cut emissions is a vague form of economic model. Economic models of what might happen if we try to reduce emissions have less rigor than climate models. It can be argued with just as much or perhaps more justification that developing energy efficiency and reducing emissions would have a positive effect on the economy.

The economy is hardly threatened. I'll try to list the reasons why I think so:
1) Europe generally has a much smaller per capita GHG footprint than the US, yet their economies are doing just fine (this is especially true of chocolate-making countries). Note that they do this with hydro, nukes, and also with high fuel taxes. (Caveat: GHG "imports" and "exports" -- but if you ding them for the GHG embodied by their imports from us, we get dinged by the GHG from our imports from China.)
2) There are at least two things we could do that would chop our GHG footprint that are hardly economy-destroying -- drive smaller cars, and eat much less beef and pork. 4 legs bad, 2 wings good.
3) The carbon taxes I've seen proposed are relatively small -- enough to motivate industry, but within the range of price fluctuations we've seen for fossil fuel. An example is $40/ ton of CO2 (CO2-equivalent, if you consider methane and nitrous oxides). CO2-ton = roughly 100 gallons of burned gasoline, so $.40/gallon. We'd notice a price jump like that, but it would still be lower than recent price spikes. For comparison, the money we spend/spent (borrowed) on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was in the ballpark of $.70/gallon.
4) There's at least one economically neutral driving-disincentive out there that we could deploy; pay-per-mile auto insurance. The first is a simple economic efficiency -- by buying your insurance per-mile instead of per-year, you obtain the ability to save more money by not driving (the price is nowhere near linear per mile, but this does not reflect actual risk) [clf.org]. I can't convince myself that congestion pricing is also economically neutral, since it is creates a market for one kind of driving (uncongested) by excluding the other kind of driving (congested), but it also discourages driving.
5) We're resistant to somewhat more gung-ho measures, like using bicycles more, because "we're not a dense country". Oddly enough, despite this lack of density there's also "no room for bicycle infrastructure". In fact, many (at least 1/3 of the population, I can't get a perfect answer from census data, but I can get a lower bound) lives in densities of 2000/sq mile or higher. 1/3 of us already live in places where we could drive far less, if we bothered to convert some of our infrastructure away from automobiles. Before-and-after experience in the Netherlands suggests that this is not economy-destroying -- you can cram many more people into a space if they arrive on bicycles (or busses, or trains, or a combination) than if they arrive in cars. More people = more economic activity. The goal here is not one-size-fits-all, "New York is dense, so you can bicycle across Montana" transit planning (that would be stupid), but to steal what works in other countries, and use it where it is appropriate.
6) Improved building codes. Again, steal from Europe. Houses can hold heat better than they do. We're doing better now than we did, but we could do better yet, and the expenses (compared to property, and labor costs of construction) are not that large. Kind of a shame we just had a building boom under the less efficient building codes.

And I say that lowering the levels of CO2 will cause fairies to explode into flower scented farts. The burden of proof is on you to prove that it won't happen. Or do you want all the fairies to die?

Why should we have to prove your speculations false, when you have no proof that they are true? You are the ones making such wild claims. The best you have are computer models with failed predictions, like the Arctic completely melting by 2006. Your "proof" that CO2 has anything to do with temperature, is that you took a vote (consensus) on it. Sorry, that isn't proof of any kind. If I got a group a school children (student scientists) to vote that pi was 12, would that really make it true?

This sort of reverse proof is how religions work, not science. Until you stop praying to Algore and try to understand what is actually going on, you will be unable to do anything about it. You might as well just throw your favorite spouse and children into the nearest volcano. It would probably solve more problems than anything else you are doing.

And I say that lowering the levels of CO2 will cause fairies to explode into flower scented farts. The burden of proof is on you to prove that it won't happen. Or do you want all the fairies to die?

Got any evidence to back that up? Proven it on a small scale? Some math that makes any kind of sense?

Your "proof" that CO2 has anything to do with temperature, is that you took a vote (consensus) on it.

Only if you look only at the political side of the global warming debate. In science, the warming effect of CO2 is well-established and proven on smaller scales. Please explain why CO2 would behave completely differently on a large scale.

The biggest problem with the effect CO2 has on global warming is that there are also a lot of other warming and cooling effects, and the relationship between those is not always fully understood. And that's what TFA is talking about.

2. Correlation? Check. Temperatures continued to increase, as predicted, with minor variation and regression towards the mean, but that mean continually increased with corresponding CO2 (actually, GHG) increases.

3. Causal Mechanism? Check. Radiative forcing is firmly established, as is the physics and other interactions that back this theory up. We have a lot of very solid work in this area, and our observations match our predictions. If anything, our predictions are overly conservative because our assumptions are so conservative.

4. Eliminate Confounding Variables? Check. We've eliminated every other theory/hypothesis to explain temperature rise. We know the current temperature rises are abnormal and differ from previous changes. We know it's not due to solar variation or (heresy) a decrease in pirates. There may be another confounding variable out there, but nobody has found it or made a serious scientific case in its favor.

Note: I'm seriously asking. No need to personally attack me or anything; I'm not personally attacking you. I'm assuming you have some piece of evidence other than the ice core data on which you're basing your claim of temporal ordering, and I'm just asking you what that is.

You know, the one that goes like this: something other than CO2 started the temperature rise, but then, after 800-1000 years, the temperature rise caused a rise in CO2, and from that point on, for the next 4000 years or so, the CO2 caused all the further warming, until, again, something which we don't know, caused it all to drop. Therefore, it is all consistent with CO2 as driver, for as you can see, in those 4000 years (whilst temperatures were rising after CO2 had also started rising), the CO2 caused a great deal of warming.

Except the mechanism is actually quite well known, and CO2 was *not* what started the historical warming cycles. That was known to be Milankovitch cycles - but the problem was that, by itself, Milankovitch cycles didn't seem to have a large enough effect to cause that much warming - it was the right shape, but the wrong magnitude. The most reasonable explanation is some sort of feedback effect, which happens to involve CO2 being released from the oceans due to a temperature increase. All of this stuff has s

The first part of this is true - but it's important to bear in mind that the use of "imply" in this statement is not the same as the colloquial use. Imply here means "prove" - correlation does not prove causation. A suggestion for a more accurate way of phrasing the statement that avoids confusion is "correlation does not imply causation, but it is a hint".I point this out because the second part of your statement isn't true unless you're taking the colloquial meaning of "imply", since it is not true that correlation always means there is connection - coincidence is also a possibility. Taking this meaning (that correlation suggests there is a connection) it would be true in many circumstances to say that correlation implied causation.

It's controversial now for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, people are asking other people to modify their behaviour because of it. This means that you suddenly have two groups of people (broadly, investors in oil and investors in 'green' technology) who have a vested interest in the predictions being accurate or inaccurate. These two groups both have a lot larger advertising budgets than any group of scientists, and neither really understands the science, so they manage to drown out scientifi

Well actually, it would seem the overall message and the science will have changed rather significantly if this study proves close to the mark.

With a couple more centuries before dangerous warming takes place the situation changes drastically. Alternative energy supplies and improvements in scrubbing technology have time to advance in two hundred years. (And the increasing cost and scarcity of fossil fuels might have something to do with it as well).

There is nothing absolutely nothing in the paper that suggests that the authors have studied any plants at all. They merely extrapolate an effect based on some very large assumptions that plants everywhere can be represented by a few simple parameters in their model. A look at most of the arid regions of the world, demonstrate that these assumptions are wildly optimistic. Ground cover in these regions is shrinking dramatically due to lack of soil moisture.

So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?

Who has been proven to be correct? Which deniers have ever stated that doubling CO2 will result in a 1.64C rise? I doubt anyone has said that before. Instead we get a range of responses, such as:

an increase in CO2 doesn't result in an increase in temperature

the Earth is actually cooling

temperature rises precede CO2 rises

it's all natural and not man-made

You can't keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes and then claim success when one of those guesses comes true. It is just not scientific. It is the same as trying to claim you have ESP because you can accurately predict the outcome of a coin toss 50% of the time.

You can't keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes and then claim success when one of those guesses comes true.

I guess my question for you is, why is it so important to you that the factions be in lockstep and monolithic thinkers? The science is not settled, and I don't think ANYBODY would argue that we have an even remotely complete understanding of environment/climate. Not all the "deniers" as you choose to call them believe the same thing. This is pretty standard for any academic field...and what's wrong with that? Furthermore, of your propositions, are any of them mutually exclusive?

For instance, nobody at all argues that human industry has not emitted CO2 over the last 200 years... but how much compared to natural sources? Some people argue that point. Is that mutually exclusive with CO2 not impacting temperature as a causal factor? Are either of those in opposition to CO2 levels responding to global temperature changes? Obviously if those are your arguments, they're not inconsistent with each other.

I read "skeptic" blogs and "established science" blogs on climate change, and frankly I don't know enough to judge much of any of the science, math, or methodology on the merits. I do see a lot of behavior that makes me skeptical about members on both sides. Climate Audit I think has jumped the shark, but the blog's purpose--to get scientists to open up their data, code, and methodology seems perfectly reasonable, and objections (or, the way SOME scientists have responded) to those things do make me question motivations, etc.

I guess my question for you is, why is it so important to you that the factions be in lockstep and monolithic thinkers?

Speaking for myself, not the GP, but my main complaint is that most of the deniers I've interacted with aren't even in lockstep with themselves. They vacillate between arguing that the planet is cooling, that the planet is warming naturally due to solar cycles, and that the rising temperatures are causing rising CO2. If you point out the flaws in their argument, many will go on to claim that it's all a socialist conspiracy to redistribute wealth, restrict freedom, and get more research money.

My main concern is that the majority of deniers DON'T seem to have a cohesive, intellectually honest argument. Their most outspoken leaders frequently misrepresent both science and politics (ala "Climate Gate").

Not all the "deniers" as you choose to call them believe the same thing. This is pretty standard for any academic field...and what's wrong with that?

Other than my point above, I'll also add that very few of the deniers actually currently do research related to the field. I've seen some very prominent MDs and electrical engineers argue that climate scientists are clueless, but within the field there is very little variance. The vast majority of papers I've seen on the subject say, "Oh, I agree with your methodology and conclusions, but you got this little piece slightly off. You need to reconsider this little piece of your model and make an adjustment of 0.003 here." If anything, the field itself is far less divided than many others.

For instance, nobody at all argues that human industry has not emitted CO2 over the last 200 years... but how much compared to natural sources? Some people argue that point.

All available evidence shows that they are wrong. We have multiple lines of evidence, and all signs point towards the preponderance of CO2 and GHG level increases being caused by human activities.

...and frankly I don't know enough to judge much of any of the science, math, or methodology on the merits.

Hey, now we can agree! Very few people know enough to judge the conclusions of a multidisciplinary area like climate modeling. Those who DO know enough are already working in the field. Even retired climatologists may not be trustworthy sources because they may not be keeping up with modern advances ("The evidence sucked when I retired in 1980, therefore it must be false.").

Knowing this, we usually look at a consensus. Every good survey or report I've ever seen has shown an overwhelming consensus within the field that anthropogenic climate change is real. Every survey/petition/letter I've seen proclaiming the opposite has been flawed by including MDs, EEs, DDSs, and other "sciencey" fields to gather more signatures.

Even ignoring a consensus, the conservative approach is to limit emissions until you know with high confidence that emissions are safe. People are trying to establish a 1% confidence level for AGW when they should really be establishing a 1% confidence level for emissions being safe.

Your very classification of someone as a denier means you've already decided that they are not rational humans who consider well-reasoned arguments. Why would you bother making a well-reasoned argument (and accepting that maybe YOU have flaws in your argument, which cause it to be rejected)? You've already decided the outcome of your interaction with these so-called deniers, yet act as if the outcome was due entirely to their mindset. It's sickening to read paragraph after paragraph of this "deniers this, d

Skepticism, I'd argue, is inherently good. Being environmentally conscientious should be a result of good science to be meaningful, not of being on the populist "team green". The moment we take a critical eye off our own views is the moment that our causes lose meaning.

I find it strange that people think the scientific method is based on a philosophy or ideology. What scientists do is no different from what us common folk do when we debug a program or try to fix a mechanical system: you notice something funny (program gives wrong result, car won't start, water rising in basement) so you or the called-in expert speculates on the cause and then proceed on the basis of that speculation. If the facts don't bear it out, you pause, scratch your head and come up with a new speculation. Repeat as needed.

AFAICT even the most uneducated of us operate the same way in whatever we do. I suspect it's instinct, or at least such a basic result of the exercise of intelligence that no intelligent species could avoid operating that way.

Yes, but there is certainly some ideological differences between those who rigorously demand evidence and insist on controlling for cognitive bias, and those who are more prone to accept things on intuition and hearsay.

Ever heard of Karl Popper? What we currently call the Scientific Method is not even all that old, and mostly formalised by Popper, a philosopher. It's worth knowing his name, because his thinking has had a huge impact on our thinking.

Wow, what a misunderstanding of the scientific method!

When I started engineering college, among the courses I took in the first semester where Physics, of course, and Philosophy of Science.

In the first Physics classes we learned about the birth of science, the professor took us to a planetarium and showed how the planets moved among the stars. Then he explained about how ancient Greek philosophers influenced European thinking, Aristotle being the most prominent in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period

I've yet to see an anthropogenic global warming "skeptic" who wasn't just a denier JAQing [rationalwiki.org] off. I mean seriously, what is there to be skeptical about? What part of the IPCC Working Group 1 report is wrong? The Earth is getting warmer, it's due to our carbon emissions, and all that's left to argue about is what the impact will be.

You can kinda sorta be "skeptical" about how negative of an impact that will be, but again I've yet to see anyone who's managed to make a good argument that more carbon and warmer average temperatures will somehow be good for us in general. And no, "carbon is plant food!" [youtube.com] is not a good argument.

The climate change thing is sold as a whole package, a "You believe all of this or you are a DENIER!" kind of thing. However it is really a series of arguments, and at each level someone might have questions. Even some of the basics there can be some questions about. I mean the most basic is "The Earth is getting warmer, outside of any currently known cycles and over a longer period of time." Ok, pretty strong evidence here, but still there is things to look in to. The temperature recording stations have not been controlled and monitored the way we might hope, the record is not as accurate as we would like. Probably nothing that affects any results but in good science you don't write shit off just because it might be inconvenient. That doesn't mean "Look we found a potential inaccuracy, throw it all out!" but it also doesn't mean that questions shouldn't be looked in to.

A bigger things to question would be all the dire predictions, that a couple degrees in temperature rise leads to massive problems, massive loss of life and so on. This really doesn't have any good evidence and is pretty close to fear mongering. Yes I'm aware there are computer models, appreciate that means nothing. You can make a computer model to say whatever you want, a model is only good if it accurately models things, if it has proven predictive power. There is a lot to question in the "Warming means our DOOM," part of the argument.

An even bigger question would be that in the case that is correct, that cutting emissions is the thing to do. The reason is best as we can tell the Earth has been much warmer, and colder, in the past than it is now. So real good chance that happens again, to think that we are in some magic time of stability where all variation has stopped would be extremely silly. Thus sooner or later, no matter what we do, the temperature will almost certainly shift multiple degrees. If that is truly going to be deadly to us, then the concentration needs to not be on what is causing this change, but how to survive such a change. It does no good to make drastic cuts to emissions and stop this change (presuming that it would indeed stop this change) only to then get hit with a change that humans DIDN'T cause and thus can't stop.

You can very well accept many of the fundamental ideas (like that the Earth is getting warmer) and yet still question the conclusions and policy propositions. This idea that it is part and parcel, that you have to accept EVERYTHING, all the premises, all the conclusions and all the policy without question or your are a DENIER is false. It also leads one to question what the hell is going on. A student of human behaviour immediately recognizes that tactic: That of a con man. That is how people peddling fake crap, religions, and other things that don't stand up to scrutiny do it. They present their show and shout down anyone who questions it at all. They attack people who question because they know their argument does not stand up to questioning. Only blind acceptance of the entire package is acceptable, anything else draws hostility.

As such one may wonder why this is done with regards to climate change. It makes some of us nervous.

The science has been overcome by the politics. Let's take anthropogenic global warming as fact. What next? Obviously the offending anthropogenic behavior must be controlled. This leads to an increase in wealth and power for a select few; the natural evolution of institutions.

At this point I don't care about the science. The politics must be stopped.

Weather models (which can easily be objectively checked via existing and coming weather patterns) are an attempt to describe the weather on small scale in great detail)

Climate models (which cannot easily be objectively checked via weather data) are an attempt to describe the average weather in an area over a large period of time. The only evidence for or against is over periods of hundreds to thousands of years as regional or even global averages.

The simple fact is climate models have not existed long enough for them to be checked with any great statistical significance, and they are at a huge disadvantage from human nature because people use weather fallacies to discredit climate all the time.

Just because a climate model predicts lower-than-normal wind patterns, doesn't mean the windiest day on record for isolated regions can't happen during that period without invalidating the model.
Just because a climate model predicts periods of colder-than-normal climates, doesn't mean the hottest day on record for isolated locations can't occur during that period without invalidating the model.
Just because a climate model predicts cloudier-than-normal patterns, doesn't mean the sunniest stretch of weather on record for some regions can't occur during that period without invalidating the model.

This is exactly what happens on a daily basis though. We have an idea that short-term climate models are getting closer and some are more accurate than others, but we don't have enough data to show statistical significance to even decade-length climate models. If you get to century-or-greater climate models, we have historical data and estimations to work off of, but no empirical "check" data to work off of.

The mere suggestion that climate models are not accurately predicting shows you are suffering from this exact same fallacious logic.

The simple fact is climate models have not existed long enough for them to be checked with any great statistical significance

Yet you think that even pretend projections can be got with a hundred or so years of weather data?

Car analogy time. What you are trying to do is roughly similar to me standing by the side of a road with blinders on and predicting the eventual destination of the cars that pass by without even turning my head.

There is absolutely no way to check your model, furthermore you are trying to model something that we only understand in the barest of ways. There are so many unknown variables and such a huge amount of

The first real demonstration of climate model skill was in the 1960's when models predicted the counter intuitive phenomena of stratosphereic cooling. The next significant demonstration was when models in the 80's predicted the phenomena of polar-amplification. Both these phenomena were predicted by models before they were confirmed with observations. As for predicting the global average temprature trend the observations have been well within the error bars of model predictions since the 1970's.

"You wouldnt get in an airplane designed by model results as crappy as these"

Hate to break this to you but you already do, climate models work on the same finite element algorithims as any other engineering model does when there is no anylitical solution to the equations. Computers have been doing this type of numerical analysis since they were first invented and took over the job of producing artilery tables. Such methods have revolutionised both science and engineering over the pats 50yrs to the point that no major engineering project would dare contemplate not using them.

Are they perfect? - Of course not but imperfect certainly does not mean useless, if it did all of science would be useless.

Increase in precipitation contributes primarily to increase evapotranspiration rather than surface runoff, consistent with observations, and results in an additional cooling effect not fully accounted for in previous simulations with elevated CO2.

And what if it the precipitations don't increase? Or don't increase enough in areas with vegetation (like mid of the ocean)? Or if the precipitations are high enough to flood and drown the vegetation? What about precipitations during winter?

Yes, yes, yes...the simulation is sooo more precise: it predicts a value with 0.3C lower than the older models. But... errr... what about the confidence levels of the modeling? (not that the older models would have one ready).

1.64DegC is still within the error bars for climate sensitivity that have not significantly changed since the 1970's; ie: 3.0DegC +/- 1.5 degC for a doubling of CO2.

The abstract itself claims: "By accelerating the water cycle, this feedback slows but does not alleviate the projected warming, reducing the land surface warming by 0.6C. Compared to previous studies, these results imply that long term negative feedback from CO2 induced increases in vegetation density could reduce temperature following a stabilization of CO2 concentration." [My emphasis] - In other words nature will suck up our excess if we stop pumping into the atmosphere faster than she can cope with it, which has been the assumption for many years.

Disclaimer: I'm not rubbishing the study I think it's a valuable in the effort to reduce the above mentioned error bars. However despite the inference of the summary it does not change the risk assesment one iota.

What is required before this one model can be said to have changed the risk assesment is for all the thousands of other models to incorporate the effect and come up with a combined result that lowers the expected value. This is not impossible but IMHO is highly unlikely.

Also I quoted something the scientists themselves thought was important enough to put in the abstract, not some jounalist putting their own political spin on the result to make the story more "interesting".

As for the risk of economic harm, numerous reputable economic studies (such as the stern report) have concluded that delaying any action will significantly increase the risk of economic harm. But I'm sure you can find just as many economic studies authoured by lobbyists at right-wing think tanks that say the opposite.

Yah! Finally! Some is asking the right question. Here are the wrong questions:

1) Is the climate warming or cooling?2) Are humans responsible?

Here are the right questions:

3) What's going to happen that's so bad we have to "do something about" now?4) When is that going to happen?

Maybe you need to answer the first two questions to answer the last two but if no-one is asking the last two then we're likely to run off half-cocked and implement political policy that does more harm than good. (see, for example, cap and trade).

WGI establishes the physical basis of anthropogenic climate change. AFAIK this is has not been convincingly challenged. WGII attempts to quantify the results, which is of course harder to pin down (and included a notorious inaccuracy [skepticalscience.com] or two). This new study will doubtless help refine the WGII predictions further.

3) What's going to happen that's so bad we have to "do something about" now?

Climate is going to shift; species are going to go extinct; agricultural and hydraulic "haves" are going to become "have-nots", and vice versa; nations will have new things to fight about; we're going to have to move all our coastal cities to higher ground; maybe a few other odds and ends.

4) When is that going to happen?

It's in progress now. Don't know when the shooting is going to start, but the effects seem to consistently outrun the predictions, so you should expect the shooting to start sooner rather than later.

The existing cap and trade system for sulpur emmissions implemented (and personally spearheaded) by Ronald Regan in the early 1990's has been an outstanding sucess at reducing acid rain. The scheme is international, based on sound science and free market ideals, I don't see what's to dislike other than paying more for your electricity if you choose a provider that insists on using antiquated technology.

The four questions you raise have been discussed ad-nausem for the last 20yrs, your "finally" comment only serves to demonstrates you haven't been paying attention to the science or the politics.

If we stop spewing so much CO2 (and equivalent) into the sky, will the climate stop changing as rapidly as it has been the past few decades?

We have absolutely no science that says "No", and plenty that says "Yes". Reducing our GHG emissions will protect the relative stability of the climate upon which our civilization depends. With far better certainty that we ask to do anything else we do on the scale of the globe or billions of people.

Raising the partial pressure of CO2 exponentially results in a linear increase in the pH.

This is because the Concentration of CO2 in the water is determined using Henry's Law, a linear relationship between partial pressure in the gas and liquid concentration. At the relevant concentrations the concentration of H+ is linearly related to the concentration of CO2 in the water.

Well if you think a little about life in the oceans, you will quickly recognize that most of them produce skeletons of some kind, most based on calcium salts. Skeletal formation and for many reproduction will not occur if the pH drops even a fraction of one pH unit (pH is a logarithmic scale). If you have ever enjoyed shirmp, crabs, shellfish, or fish, most of which feed on such organisms, not to mention need to produce their own calcium-phosphate salt, you can begin to understand why this needs to be a v

Uh, no. We are not at all certain what caused the event. Guesses include large or multiple meteor impacts, increased volcanism, or sudden release of methane hydrates from the sea floor. Your last sentence belies the reason you excluded two of the three.

I don't care if the models are good or if they're bad. This is because I was brought up to believe that every action we take has consequences. Some of those consequences may be bad. Some of those consequences may be good. But something happens as the result of our actions.
Now if the models are good and they're predicting nasty consequences, then clearly we must act otherwise people will die and there will be mass migrations of displaced populations that will come knocking at our doors.
But some argue

Yes. The precautionary principle v the law of unintended consequences. Both apply to either side of the debate, believe it or not, so it's not really the kind of argument you can come to a conclusion about.

This is a much better summary. Also, the OP misquotes the 2X CO2 value as 1.64. The study found 1.94C, and a decrease of 0.6 compared to the model without the feedback. Even 2.6 is on the low end. With some recent work on cloud feedbacks, 4C is more likely.

Just want to verify that everyone who is full-on convinced about the negative effects of climate change is a vegetarian. At this point it's essentially [csmonitor.com] indisputable [time.com] that eating meat -- particularly beef, but all meat due to second order effects aside from methane (increased fuel usage for the additional grain required to grow animals, etc) -- is a significant factor in greenhouse gas production. If every American became vegetarian, the reduction of greenhouse gasses would be greater than swapping out every SUV for an electric car. So, those of you pilloring consumers, government, or industry -- you've already made the switch, right? Cause you wouldn't want to be hypocritical.

Just want to verify that everyone who is full-on convinced about the negative effects of climate change is a vegetarian.... you've already made the switch, right? Cause you wouldn't want to be hypocritical.

Well, we all know that on the Internet hypocrisy is the greatest and most venal sin. And you've opened my eyes to the fact that people are selfish and screw around, so that absolutely makes it ok for us to double the level of atmospheric CO2. This logic couldn't be more solid.

OPs point IMHO is that there are significant things we can do today to solve this problem without legislation, but even some of the staunchest advocates of CC refuse to do those things.

We all agree that there are actions we can take to solve the problem. This is obvious. Where we appear to disagree is in our belief that these actions will actually be taken without some outside incentive.

These people are showing that they don't really care to do what's necessary to fix the problem; instead they'd rather

Let me add further scepticism: Unless you cite a paper that you published in a peer-reviewed journal to back up your claim, you don't get to dismiss models that have been accepted in peer-reviewed journals.

In Climate Science, "peer review" is more a guarantee that spelling errors have been corrected and that the gate-keepers are keeping the journal "on message" than it is a guarantee of correct methodology and/or conclusions. Two examples spring to mind: Mann's hockey stick and Steig's Antarctic warming paper. Both of these have had front-page placement in Nature and both of them were unmitigated bollocks. So no, on this issue particularly, peer review is more about censorship than it is about truth.

Obviously OA is the next big Green scare. I can't believe you're such an idiot as to not see this for what it really is: political activism.

Still not seeing any citations, but perhaps you should be reviewing your own examples. The hockey stick has been confirmed by multiple independent lines of evidence:

McIntyre 2004 [agu.org] claimed that the Mann 1999 [psu.edu]'s hockey-stick graph shape was a result of the analysis method used (principal components analysis), and was not statistically significant. However, the National Center for Atmospheric Research reconstructed (Wahl 2007 [ucar.edu]) the graph using a variety of techniques (with and without principal components analysi

Can you point to a published model that does NOT account for solar activity? Can you tell me why we have been launching space probes explicitly designed to constantly monitor solar acticvity if nobody is using the data?

Err... you mean the models the conspiracy theorists like to believe exist, which would link solar activity to global warming? The ones that would've predicted a decline in the warming trend over the last solar minimum. A decline that, well, didn't happen?

Qualitative: The Earth, Mars, and Venus are all getting warming. The only apparent link they share is that, ultimately, all of their heat comes from the Sun. Therefore, the output of the Sun must be increasing.

Quantitative: We should measure the changes in solar output, compare this to the temperature changes on all three planets, model the very different climates of all three planets, and see where this analysis leads us.